Study: ‘True Costs’ Of Electric Vehicles Far Higher Than Most Believe

[Longwalkhome]

I suspect if the power grid fails this winter it will be due to ev charging. You can imagine the outcry as people die from no heat and people can't get their rigs charged for work.

Point being is changing to ev wasn't thought out at all and it could hurt us really bad. Grid goes down and what factories and jobs we have can't run.

 

[Flopsweat]

I suspect if the power grid fails this winter it will be due to ev charging. You can imagine the outcry as people die from no heat and people can't get their rigs charged for work.

Point being is changing to ev wasn't thought out at all and it could hurt us really bad. Grid goes down and what factories and jobs we have can't run.

I miss when Americans got along with each other better and our long-term planning errors didn't cost trillions of dollars.

 

[CamoDeafie]

You know.. the only vehicles with wheels that's not on Earth.. have been either battery powered or Radioisotope Thermal generated EVs

 

[arakboss]

Chicago-area Tesla charging stations lined with dead cars in freezing cold: 'A bunch of dead robots out here'

Many Chicago-area Tesla owners were visibly frustrated on Monday after their electric vehicles failed to charge amid freezing temperatures.

www.foxbusiness.com

 

[Sundance]

You mean, about 20 minutes? In my younger days I would try to drive 600 miles - 10 hours per day. That's too much for me now, but in your example you leave the house fully charged, drive 350 miles, charge for 20 minutes, drive for another 250 miles.

That doesn't seem bad at all, very comparable to stopping to fill up with gasoline.

Do you know how long it takes to recharge a non-Tesla on the road? I'm guessing much longer than 20 minutes, at least until the other manufacturers concede that Elon is King! and adopt the Tesla recharging standard.

Yeah, 20 minutes . My daughter has a Mach E, depending on the charger it takes them 2-3 times longer to charge than me. They have a lot more chargers to choose from, but according to them, most don't work when you need them. Specially the high amp ones.
Being older, even when we go on road trips in the Vette, we generally don't go over 350 miles a day, and make a couple stops to stretch going that far .

 

[Bacchus]

we generally don't go over 350 miles a day, and make a couple stops to stretch going that far

That's not too bad. When we used to come home from the airport with the wife's daughter, she usually wanted to stop somewhere to eat, even if the trip home was less than an hour. Grrr.

 

[lucusloc]

Yeah, 20 minutes . My daughter has a Mach E, depending on the charger it takes them 2-3 times longer to charge than me. They have a lot more chargers to choose from, but according to them, most don't work when you need them. Specially the high amp ones.
Being older, even when we go on road trips in the Vette, we generally don't go over 350 miles a day, and make a couple stops to stretch going that far .

Don't forget that "fast charging" your battery approximately halves its expected lifespan. That is just how our modern battery technology works, and it is true of phones, laptops, cars and everything else. This is something most consumers are blissfully unaware, and device manufactures are loathe to call attention to. If you want the longest battery life you have to take the slow charge every single time. If you do not say good bye to your capacity.

As another observation is EV cars are just not built with the long term owner in mind. They are designed for the short term "owner," the type of people who will sign a 5 year lease and trade out their old car for a new one when the lease is up. There was an ICE car maker who ran the same way, anyone remember Saturn? Their cars were loved by the lease holders; good price, lots of options "great value." Problem was they were not built to last, and most of them developed fatal issues at right around the 5 year mark (the average lease length). Try to find a Saturn on the used car market now, more than a decade after they went out of business. I am willing to bet the only ones you can find only had a Saturn badge, and actually ran Honda under the hood. Anything with a Saturn engine has died years ago, cooked to death by its own short-term engineering paradigm. They always had garbage resale value, as anyone silly enough to buy one found out when it started having problems. They were designed to be disposable, buying them as something you could rely on long term was never their intention.

EVs will be the same, as the primary and most expensive component (the battery) has a built-in shelf life that technology has not overcome yet. If you can keep an EV limping along for 10 or 15 years (far less if all you do is fast charge) it will do so with a fraction of its originally rated range, and will be worth next to nothing on the used market. This may be all well and good for people who are willing to pay nearly full asking price for a vehicle over 5 years on a lease and then sign up to do it all over again when that lease is up, but for everyone else who does not want to burn money like that, well EVs are going to prove a very tough lesson in how costly early adoption is for this kind of technology.

Call me when they sort out solid state batteries all the way. That technology promises to be nearly 100% durable over the long term. They just need to sort out all the bugs first.

 

[arakboss]

Start saving your pee. It's going to be like liquid gold.

Scientists make breakthrough discovery while experimenting with urine: 'We can reuse a very significant portion of the cobalt'

A team of scientists has discovered an unexpectedly effective method for EV battery recycling — and its derived from urine.

www.thecooldown.com

 

[Flopsweat]

Start saving your pee. It's going to be like liquid gold.

Scientists make breakthrough discovery while experimenting with urine: 'We can reuse a very significant portion of the cobalt'

A team of scientists has discovered an unexpectedly effective method for EV battery recycling — and its derived from urine.

www.thecooldown.com

This is a treatment that I recommended for EV's when they first came out.

 

[arakboss]

At least the windows are ball bearing proof.

VIDEO: Tesla Cybertruck stuck on Oregon sand dunes

A Tesla driver needed a tow after their all-electric Cybertruck got stuck in the dunes at the Sand Lake Recreation Area in Sandlake, Ore. on May 18.

www.koin.com

 

[Certaindeaf]

It's all worth it though because the children mining the manganese in the congo usually unearth a nutritious cockroach every now and again.

 

[Nosferatu]

What I'd like to see is a heavy-duty truck with a diesel-electric powertrain. You could have a small 4-cylinder diesel engine powering 4 electric motors at each wheel. This would give you all the torque benefits of the electric powertrain, with the fuel savings of a small diesel that simply maintains a constant RPM just producing electricity.

Replying to myself on this one because someone is actually doing it!

I found Edison Motors several months ago who are doing just this. They are getting a Cummins and Cat diesel certified and have sourced their own electric axles. There is no ETA on light duty truck conversions yet, but I put myself on the list several months ago for $250. Estimated conversion costs are "half of what a new truck costs", according to them.

It's been interesting watching a bunch of loggers in Canadia do what the big truck manufactures haven't done or have drug their feet on.

Edison Pickup Kit | Edison Motors

www.edisonmotors.ca

 

[Flopsweat]

Replying to myself on this one because someone is actually doing it!

I found Edison Motors several months ago who are doing just this. They are getting a Cummins and Cat diesel certified and have sourced their own electric axles. There is no ETA on light duty truck conversions yet, but I put myself on the list several months ago for $250. Estimated conversion costs are "half of what a new truck costs", according to them.

It's been interesting watching a bunch of loggers in Canadia do what the big truck manufactures haven't done or have drug their feet on.

Edison Pickup Kit | Edison Motors

www.edisonmotors.ca

I'm holding out until Westinghouse comes out with an AC version.

Spoiler: For those who duh

In the late 1800's Westinghouse and Edison had competing systems for electrifying homes. Edison's DC version was inferior to Westinghouse's AC system, but Edison won out with better marketing, and of course infamously publicly electrocuting several animals including an elephant with AC current to show how dangerous it was.

 

[JRuby]

We had our 2007 ford explorer totaled the week before last. No body got hurt and cars are replaceable. I was not driving but my old nick name used to be "Crash". Anyways we're looking at new SUVs. My wife and I have agreed it will be a hybrid. Looking at Toyota Highlanders and Lexus. The reason why we are going that way is mileage and performance. I am not ready to replace my truck with a hybrid but for onroad vehicles they make sense. EVs are not ready for prime time in my opinion.

 

[Stomper]

Start saving your pee. It's going to be like liquid gold.

Scientists make breakthrough discovery while experimenting with urine: 'We can reuse a very significant portion of the cobalt'

A team of scientists has discovered an unexpectedly effective method for EV battery recycling — and its derived from urine.

www.thecooldown.com

And poop will be like chocolate cake!

 

[Stomper]

Been seeing reports of people getting sticker shock over the replacement cost of the battery banks in their EV's….. costing more than the vehicle book value!


My wife worked for Mercedes Benz before she retired several years ago, and she was saying this would happen.

 

[nammac]

Been seeing reports of people getting sticker shock over the replacement cost of the battery banks in their EV's….. costing more than the vehicle book value!


My wife worked for Mercedes Benz before she retired several years ago, and she was saying this would happen.

EV's, because of battery replacement cost, will become disposable vehicles, unfortunately. I can't see anyone spending $10k, $12k or $15k to replace the battery pack on a 10-12 year old Prius….

Technology is moving forward by leaps and bounds, making EV's that are 10-12 years old obsolete.

 

[CamoDeafie]

disposable vehicles,

Isn't that how most people see their cars, at least for the last 50-odd years after 1974?

Especially when the cost to replace whole engines and transmissions are greater than the vehicle's worth after 5-10 years?

 

[JRuby]

Actually I can afford to replace the engine more easily than I can afford to replace my truck. An engine would be less than 10k a new truck would be closer to 50k
Take care of what you have and it will last.

 

[Flopsweat]

EV's, because of battery replacement cost, will become disposable vehicles, unfortunately. I can't see anyone spending $10k, $12k or $15k to replace the battery pack on a 10-12 year old Prius….

Technology is moving forward by leaps and bounds, making EV's that are 10-12 years old obsolete.

Buy one cheap and convert it to diesel.

Or make a trailer out of it if it's a Rivian.